


atlas

by cosmicpoet



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-22 20:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13174452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicpoet/pseuds/cosmicpoet
Summary: Nagito holds up the weight of his own hope with shoulders forged in despair. He goes through the class trials, and sees his classmates rise and fall.(aka: a slight study in danganronpa two, from nagito's perspective)





	atlas

Nagito wakes, his head clear, his heart heavy. He never lets himself question his own actions; the moment his self-introspection begins to teeter on the precipice of doubt and madness, he stops himself by force. Having resigned himself to a life of aching and longing, he knows that it would be selfish of him to hope that someone else bears the burden - even for one day - and every time his mind takes him to rich imaginations of a life wherein he no longer plays the role of Atlas, he punishes himself _harshly._

As he’s writing the note to Togami, he wonders how this whole bloody affair will play out. Of course, he’s relying on his luck for the most part of it, and if he’s measured his _bad luck, good luck_ cycle correctly, he needs something painful - something terrible - to ensure that his plan goes correctly. He needs to ensure his present bad luck so that his future good luck aids his classmates in finding their ultimate hopes.

He chants a mantra of _“bad luck, bad luck”_ in his mind as, once he’s finished writing the note, he digs the nib of the pen into the flesh of his arm. It draws blood, sharply, and he’s fascinated by watching it bubble in a little sphere; he’s in love with beautiful things, and this is the most beautiful thing he can imagine right now - letting pain burn him, and remaining prisoner to the feeling. He watches, for a moment, as the blood remains in a solid sphere on his arm, and then he wipes it away with his finger before it can harden and become real.

Nagito struggles to define pain as good or bad luck, and he presses on anyway.

* * *

 

Everything is going to plan, until it isn’t. He’s ready to get the knife from under the table when he’s pushed out from underneath it, and he feels the scab on his arm with regret, thinking that he shouldn’t have given himself the release of pain earlier - not when anything that makes him feel less-than-terrible can be considered _good luck._ Of course his bad luck would come now; now, he will never see his classmates rise to impossible heights and achieve hope worthy of their school’s name. Even in the blackout, Nagito swears that he can see a light, somewhere, fading.

But Byakuya still dies. Stabbed, but Nagito knows, not with a knife. He investigates with Hajime, and finds himself lost in thought; thinking of how wonderful life will be once he understands Hajime’s talent. Once he knows how worthy, how beautiful Hajime can be, Nagito is sure that he will fall deeper in love - and, _of course_ , he won’t deserve for it to be requited, but nothing will be able to take from him the fact that he exists alongside someone who embodies hope so delicately and intrinsically. 

When Hajime turns on him in the trial, he closes his eyes and compartmentalises the part of himself that remembers how to love. He laughs, and laughs, until he’s unsure if he’ll even be able to cry when he goes back to his room later. As suspicion falls on Teruteru, Nagito shakes his head at the despair of it all - how pathetic the culprit is - screaming baseless defences and tearing his hair out. As Teruteru is hauled away, by the neck, to his execution, Nagito feels _nothing._

But now, everyone sees him for who he truly is, and he _hates_ it. For his whole life, he’s known the man underneath the front he puts up, and he thinks he is truly worthless, but to have everyone else see it now - _to have Hajime see it now_ \- is breaking his heart. His classmates are all shining with beautiful hope, and he, in comparison, is worthless, useless, _hopeless._

Soon after, Nagito spits at his reflection in the mirror and chastises himself for being so disgusting.

* * *

 

When he’s tied up and restrained, he half hopes that he’ll starve to death. Monokuma will count that as a murder, and he’ll finally have fulfilled his two goals: to die, and to die with _meaning._ Because there would be a trial, and class trials, he knows, bring out the brightest hope within his classmates. Even though they don’t understand or see it themselves, he can appreciate how beautiful they shine when they’re facing despair. 

Still, Mahiru dies. A small part of him feels sad that another one of his classmates has died, but mainly, he’s letting the building anticipation within him soak his entire being with the promise of hope. Another class trial; another chance to witness hope in action, rising beyond despair and achieving magnificence. Hajime doesn’t want to be anywhere near him, and it stings, but he somewhat understands - if he truly accepts that his existence is merely a stepping stone, he cannot expect, or even hope, to be loved. Whenever he thinks otherwise, even for a split second, he wants to hurt himself to remind himself, physically, that not only is he not worthy of love, he cannot achieve love if he wishes to watch his classmates rise.

Peko shows him a hope that he has only ever seen in the darkest corners of himself. She loves Fuyuhiko; she’s willing, even ready, to die for him, and as Fuyuhiko charges into her execution, Nagito sinks into the sweet release of imagination - imagining that it is he, rather than her, who’s facing the sword and the blood, and Hajime, rather than Fuyuhiko, is rescuing him.

This thought sickens him later that night. He let his personal longing take precedence over his overarching yearning for ultimate hope, only for a second, but enough for him to doubt his resolve. The only way for him to redeem himself is to hurt himself once more. Luckily, Monokuma has left multiple weapons around - some are too grand for mere self-punishment, but others are the perfect size to do no real harm. He took a lighter days ago, and it now sits in his room, ready for him to do his bidding. He lights it, and leaves it burning on the desk as he brings his arm closer and closer to the flame, feeling a gentle warm heat bubble into a blistering burn; he hears the hairs on his arm singe and moves away, bringing another section closer and repeating the same process. After a while, his arm is covered in white and red blotches. Within days, they’ve progressed to horrible, yellow blisters, but he keeps them hidden beneath his sleeves and presses on them whenever things get too much.

* * *

 

When the despair disease hits him, his mind is flooded with a lack of control, and he _hates_ it. With every lie that spits from his mouth, he wants to hurt himself even more; he’s accustomed to lying, but he lies for the sake of hope, not for the sake of despair. He understands, within himself, that the disease makes people the opposite of what they are, so he takes solace in knowing that if he’s lying in despair right now, then he must, naturally, be on the side of hope. If the opposite of him is despair, then he must be hope _embodied_ ; he clings to this as his fever rises and he’s too weak to stand. 

Even before the trial, he knows that Mikan is the culprit. He can see it in her eyes, the overwhelming despair circles her entire being. For a moment, he doubts the hope that his classmates represent, because for students of Hope’s Peak Academy, _how can they not see this?_ Mikan’s whole body is pulsating with despair, every word she says in defence of herself is a downright lie, and Nagito hates her for it. He can never forgive her; not after she killed two of his promising classmates for the sake of her own, pathetic motivations. He watches as she gets executed, and laughs to himself when he sees death replace the despair in her eyes. As the rest of his classmates stand confused at his exhilaration, he can feel nothing but pleasure in knowing that someone so filled with despair is gone.

* * *

 

The Funhouse presents a new kind of desperation for the rest of them. Starvation hits Nagito harder than the rest, although he’ll never admit it. His illnesses seem to worsen when he doesn’t have food to sustain him - and he’s glad of it, because he never got to bring his lighter with him and he needs some way to punish himself. When he tells his classmates that they can kill him to get out, it’s more of a plea than a suggestion, and it hurts him to realise that they’ve all learned to ignore his suicidal begs. 

Another one of his classmates dies, and it isn’t him. Nekomaru didn’t represent despair at all; he sacrificed himself for Akane and wanted to lift others up - his ultimate talent favoured him in that respect, after all. Nagito can’t help but wish that it were he who had died instead. Still, the Final Dead Room awaits him, and he hopes that he’ll either die, or bring hope to his classmates. He really doesn’t have a preference over those two options.

Deep down, he knows how to play Russian Roulette. He knows that he only needs one bullet. But his hands won’t stop shaking until he puts five in, and he really has to stop himself from adding in the sixth and making sure that he blows his brains all over the goddamn wall. When the gun clicks, he sighs; Monokuma assumes it’s a sigh of relief, but Nagito _knows_ the truth. He just doesn’t want to be alive, not like this.

And then he finds out the truth, and it destroys him. Hajime, who he was willing to die for, _kill_ for, who he saw so much _hope_ in, is nothing more than a reserve course student. Someone with no talent, who defaced and defiled the good name of Hope’s Peak Academy. And to think that Nagito had _admired_ him, had sought hope within him, and now - now, Nagito doesn’t understand everything that has led up to this point. How can someone with no talent lead the class trials?

How could he have fallen in love with someone like that?

He watches Hajime’s face as Gundham gets executed. He displays the same horror and sadness as the rest of the class, despite knowing that he’s different, despite _everyone_ knowing that he’s different. Nagito regrets that he doesn’t watch the moment the hope leaves Gundham’s eyes; he’s too focused on someone who holds neither hope nor despair in his hands. After this, nobody will talk to him, and he agrees with them, although his reasoning is different. They isolate him because they think he’s mad; he knows that he deserves isolation because he exposed the hopeless, talentless, still somehow beautiful, member of their group.

* * *

 

But now there’s a different person to expose - the traitor. And he’s given everything already; his friendship, his investigation skills, his intelligence. All he has left to give, now, is his life. And he will. His existence has led up to this moment.

The warehouse, as it stands, is a terrible place to die. He thinks this as he’s setting everything up. It smells too strongly and the light is too dim; it reminds him of how even he fell into despair. Nagito Komaeda; a remnant of despair. The thought is like acid in the back of his throat, so much so that he can’t even swallow the spit that’s built up in his mouth. After everything he’s ever lived for, all the hope he has been so desperate to inspire, he’ll die knowing that he was only ever a vessel for despair. If he wants to set the path for hope to rise again, he needs to pave the way with the bodies of despair. He will be the starting point - a sick kind of stepping stone - for a twisted yellow-brick road of death, destruction, and potential for hope.

The moment he digs the knife into the flesh of his thigh, he’s thankful for the duct tape over his mouth. He knew that it would be painful, but this level of pain is unlike anything he’s ever experienced before, even in his life filled with horror and bad luck.

Trying to distract himself from the pain, he flashes his mind back to the last thing his luck caused him. He had the bad luck of losing the hope he saw in Hajime, so logically, he should find good luck in the fact that his plan will work. It has to work - otherwise he’s tearing his flesh apart for no reason.

This thought of _tearing flesh_ brings him back to reality. He swears that he’s touching bone with his knife, but with each stab, his resolve to hurt himself more only hardens. Every horrific, bone-crunching, skin-burning moment only reminds him of what he must have done as a remnant of despair, of how far from his ideals he must have strayed. This motivates him to punish himself further. As he moves onto his second leg, his mission strays from setting up a murder that will leave the traitor free to leave as his fellow remnants of despair die horrible deaths, to simply hurting himself enough that he forgets how his own mind works. Of course, his end goal always remains the same, but for once, he is allowing himself to step down from the role of Atlas, even if that means letting the world crush him and every damn person around him.

The voices of the people he destroyed the world with echo around the warehouse from outside the door. He’s ready, the cord of the spear is held tightly in his hand, and as the door is pushed open, he counts the falling sounds of the Monokuma panels until he sees the bottom of the curtain set aflame.

 _“Finally,”_ he thinks, _“I can die for hope. I’ll be redeemed.”_

The flames tear up the curtain in seconds, and then they’re surrounding him; he’s choking on smoke and trying not to cough through the duct tape. His eyes are watering and he winces, squeezing them shut in complete agony. When the fire grenades land, not far from him, he focuses his mind onto the finality of his mission, breathing - or hyperventilating - fast through his nostrils, inhaling the sweet, captivating stench of poison.

Then, the world around him crumbles from flame to darkness. His eyesight has gone completely, and his hearing will go soon after, he realises. He recognises Hajime’s footsteps as his ex-friends back away from the door, and for the brief, infinitesimal moment before death takes him, he allows himself to fall in love, regardless of talent, hope, or despair.

He’s had enough of everything. Death comes, and he’s willing to go.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! If you liked it, please let me know in the comments.
> 
> As always, have a good day :D


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